Caldonia Athalee Strahan was born on December 12, 1918, in Hancock, Mississippi. Technically she lived in Pearlington; however, Hurricane Katrina wiped it off the map. After a mysterious event in which the courthouse holding her birth documents was lost to a fire, she changed her name officially to Dona A. Strahan. Later in life, she would relocate to bustling city Mobile, AL, with her husband and live the rest of her life there.